15 Oct The Last Ditch Efforts to Save the Duterte Presidency

I do not want to raise false hopes but I would consider myself extremely insensitive if I do not share with the millions of Filipinos the latest updates on the Duterte Presidency.

Yes, I am confirming that following the latest public announcement of Davao City Mayor Rody Duterte that his options were retirement or staying on as Mayor, there were frantic efforts by people close to the family to save the Presidential dream.

And the efforts appear to be paying off.

Yesterday, Duterte’s daughter, Sara, who had been unfairly accused as “selfish” because of she reportedly opposed the Presidential endorsement for her father posted positive lines in her social media account.

In fairness to Sara, she is not actually opposed to the idea of her father becoming President.

She, however, refused to be lured back into politics again and declared that she wanted to have a quiet private life with her family.

Sara’s refusal to heed her father’s request for her to run as Mayor of Davao City could be one of the reasons behind the reluctance of the older Duterte to vie for the Presidency.

A pragmatic politician, Duterte believes that while there is a noisy movement asking him to run for President, it would not be an easy contest.

Given the fact that he does not like to ask money from traditional political funders and that he is running under a lean political party, PDP Laban, Duterte knows he could lose the contest for the Presidency.

“I might be like a plane who takes off and comes back finding that he has no more airport to land in,” he told TV5’s Mia Reyes.

Duterte has always been passionate with Davao City and its people and he believes that it should be handled by somebody who shares his vision for the city.

As of yesterday, it appeared that things were going smoothly and that the family could settle the question on who would take over the leadership of the city.

The options are limited to Sara and her older brother, Paolo, who is the incumbent Vice Mayor.

Everything seems to be falling into proper places and even Duterte’s bitter political enemies in the City, the Nograleses, appear to be helpful in resolving the problem.

Congressman Karlo Nograles, son of former speaker Prospero Nograles who is the object of Duterte’s disdain over the past two decades, filed his Certificate of Candidacy (COC) for Congress early on Monday, effectively dashing rumors that he would challenge a Duterte for the mayorship of Davao.

The only issue that is going to be addressed now would be the question raised by Mayor Duterte himself when we were almost at the verge of convincing him to backtrack from his earlier pronouncements rejecting the Presidency and announcement that he was heeding the people’s call.

“How would people react if, after saying twice (thrice including Monday’s press conference) that I would not run for President, I suddenly face the people and say Ok, I’m running?,” Duterte asked.

I assured Mayor Duterte that “the only people who would not like to see you backtrack from your earlier pronouncements would be the people who don’t like you to become President.”

I told him that there would be a greater number of Filipinos who would prefer that he changes his mind and declares that he was yielding to the call of the people.

Again, I don’t want to raise false hopes. I am sharing with the readers of this page of the latest development in the dream to bring ‪#‎TunayNaPagbabago to the Philippines.